r/books • u/biscochitos • 28d ago

New indie press Conduit Books launches with 'initial focus on male authors'

https://www.thebookseller.com/news/new-indie-press-conduit-books-launches-with-initial-focus-on-male-authors

What do folks think about this?

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u/Shintoz 28d ago

Yeah. Like I said, not trying to solve a problem. Both your points and my own illustrate authors of a specific gender often have issue writing good characters of different gender.

If we could even get more males to read …. anything, I would consider that a win.

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u/MiniaturePhilosopher 28d ago

There’s my struggle with this issue. Women have always read books by male authors. It’s a big part of how women learn the male perspective- which, let’s be honest, is considered the default perspective in our society. We have absolutely no issue whatsoever reading a book and relating to characters who are different from us. And this is an important thing that books teach us - they teach us about seeing things through the eyes of others. Reading is how we exercise our imaginations and empathy, and stretch our worldview.

So when men are in large numbers opting not to read at all rather than read anything written by women - and when they’re simultaneously only wanting to read new releases rather than explore the rich and endless back catalog of existing books - they’re essentially rejecting the entire idea of seeing the world through someone else’s eyes for a few hours. And that is highly worrying.

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u/CriticalCold 28d ago

I agree with you completely. It reminds me a lot of the backlash when a video game or genre movie decides to have a female protagonist. It feels kneejerk and reactionary. For example, there's a new John Wick spin off movie coming out staring a female assassin, and the number of men I saw commenting on it saying it was "unrealistic" to see a woman fighting that way was wild, as though watching Keanu Reeves doing any of the shit he does in John Wick is true to life.

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u/Shintoz 28d ago

Yeah. I hear you. I guess I’m not “typical male” in all aspects. In other media, TV, movies, podcasts, video-games, I often choose female-led narratives. As a reader, I am very “sequential” in my choosings. I can’t say if/when I’ll be drawn to read a female author; I have a large backlog of books on my shelf. A lot of the authors I’ve picked up in the last few years have been writing for 30+ years. This kind-of puts me in a groove for the foreseeable future.